


march rains

by cosmofluous



Category: Le Petit Prince | The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Gen, M/M, also bc I really really really love the little prince, aviator!keith, i think i did this just bc i wanted, my specialty, weird dream shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16111835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmofluous/pseuds/cosmofluous
Summary: He dreams he's flying low to the desert, wingtip skimming the horizon.





	march rains

**Author's Note:**

> hello voltron fandom. we're a mess aren't we and about to get rekt again soon. wanted to a do a thing for a while but this is all I got.

He dreams he’s flying low to the desert, wingtip skimming the horizon. The controls adhere to his touch, and the fighter is a leaf blade drifting between air currents. The desert spreads gold before him, rumpled satin painted by an old master.

Something skitters, breaks. He knows it's the engine. The dunes come rushing up to meet him, and his panic ices over. The fighter goes down in a cloud of sand and sparks, and the night folds in over his head.

* * *

‘If you please, draw me a lion.’

Keith drops his greased spanner between his knees. A small golden child is standing behind him, the colour of a summer nut some squirrel has hidden away through the long winter, short hair lifting in the breeze. His little face is warm and patient. A small child alone in the middle of the Sahara, like a bit of the sun broken off and fallen to earth.

‘But… what are you doing here?’

The golden child looks at him like he’s being insufferably slow. ‘If you please… draw me a lion.’

‘I can't draw,’ says Keith, stupidly.

‘Everyone can draw,’ the child insists. He has eyes like the sky after rain, like an oasis cupped in his hands.

* * *

The sun is low. The water is low. A single stubborn bolt clings to its position, blacked as a lump of charcoal. The little prince is watching him bang ineffectually at the broken engine, and from the ringing silence in between, he demands:

‘Lions travel in prides, don’t they? What happens if one gets lost?’

Keith picks up his hammer. He says, ‘Then they'll hunt alone. Some lions are nomads.’

‘Even if they want to go back? Even if the others want them to come home?’

‘I guess.’

‘Then why do they make families to begin with?’

The bolt remains stuck. Keith wipes the grease off his hands and tries again. All he gets is an ominous rattling, the bolt looking more and more like a smug slitted eye. ‘Damn it! I don’t have time for this.’ He flings the hammer down, where the sunset bleeds on the sand. ‘There isn't any reason at all. They don't need each other to begin with. It's more trouble to stay together than it is to hunt alone.’

The sun-child is pale with anger. His small golden voice is thin and tight and quiet.

‘You don't have time for this. Then what do you have time for? What does matter to you?’ His voice rises until he is shouting.

Then he is crying helplessly, shaking, and all Keith has are his big stupid hands that only know how to clench for a punch or adjust for a blade, pull the lever to release projectiles in the hull. He fumbles, desperate.

‘I'll draw you a pride for your lion,’ he promises. ‘I'll draw you a road of stars back home.’ He picks the little sun up and cradles him.

‘I'll draw you a watering well for your flowers. I'll draw you a ship for the endless sea.’ 

_(I’ll stay with you for another forty-four sunsets, as long as you'll have me.)_

* * *

Keith wakes to the sound of rain.


End file.
